Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Random Updates

Weird, jumbled dreams last night. As best I recall, I was attending an Episcopalian youth group meeting because I'd been asked to brush up on my knowledge of Christianity. Only, the meeting was up the closed-off loft of a barn - no idea why. But the youth leader had to balance on the ladder to unlock the door.

Somewhere in the process of getting into, or maybe leaving (?) that meeting, I wound up in another meeting. This time, it was for Kit Whitfield (a British author whom I've never met in real life), and she was celebrating her first year as the Mayor of Chicago. This included a nice little daycare setup for her son.

I have no idea where this came from. If it's significant of anything, it's probably that I need to get a lot more sleep.

Meanwhile, Firstborn's Kindergarten class is doing an activity where they use different kinds of tools to take apart old appliances. To help with this, I brought in an old computer keyboard, a rewinder for VHS tapes, and an old computer tower. I felt very manly carrying the thing in, though.

In college, I had a professor who explained, at length, about the symbolism of the seasons. Spring is life, beginnings, birth, and rebirth. Autumn is death, decay, mortality, endings. I looked at him like he was nuts. Why? Because I have allergies. During the Spring, everything dumps pollen in the air; so during the Spring, I habitually feel like I'm dying. Autumn is when I come alive again...

And while we're on the topic of symbolism and personification: the moon is male. At least, I always thought of it that way. Apparently this also puts me at odds with centuries of Western poetic symbolism.

Well, I disagree with you about the Moon, obviously a Woman. But I'm a little out of synch with the world, too. For instance, I think a hard G should be pronounced "juh" and a soft G would sound like "guh". This seems past obvious to me, but I understand it's a stand not accepted by most.Jenny

...And now I'm mentally spelling your name as Genny. Right, sorry, I'm over it now. But yes, in the course of trying to teach Firstborn to read, I've developed a real dislike of words where the same letter appears more than once, and is pronounced different ways at different spots in the word. "Gigantic". "Cicada". I don't think that sort of reckless phonetic behavior should be allowed in a civilized country.

I just finished reading "Holes" by Louis Sachar. I tell you what, words like that would have infuriated Zero. Kid's just trying to learn to read. Oh, and I had a crazy dream the other night where I was sort of water skiing on land, being dragged by a rocket powered vending machine. I came to the conclusion that I need to either increase or decrease my Mountain Dew intake.

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